avengersearthsmightiestheroes.wi … wiki/A.I.M.
Most of the guys that the atheists look up to are mercenary and nothing else.
If they should, this documentary may help…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP2rVGbZXrw[/youtube]
It is useful to know any and every branch of science.
It is subject to the law of diminishing returns, thus one should specialize to match his personal needs without being completely ignorant of any of them. And that specialty might change through time.
Armenius, philosophy does require funding for research. Think about how you gotta do research in order to understand how research is being done in a particular setting, and determine whether or not it’s ethical, or proper, or worth it’s grant money.
Those guys above, provide grants to philosophy departments that do just that. Most people teaching philosophy at universities, at least that I’ve met have multiple advanced degrees. So you’ve got a chemist/philosophy phd, or a neuroscience/philosophy phd, or a mathematics/philosophy phd or a guy w/ a law degree and a philosophy phd.
So health and human services wants to make sure that good ethics and responsible conduct of research is occurring in projects funded by their dollars, and so the ORI division, (office of research integrity), pays philosophy departments to essentially police things. Sometimes they fund a review board for experiments that are proposed or that have already taken place. Sometimes they fund the creation of educational tools for experimenters to use for continuing education so that they can be sure how not to accidentally falsify data.
Knowing each and every branch of science inside and out is really unnecessary. That might be hard to understand, but the truth is that there are some very basic, fundamental principles that guide proper scientific inquiry and you can tell a lot about a study just based on it’s structure and it’s proposal and it’s results…without having to know the formulas of physics, and without having to look at dyed cells under a microscope.
Not to say that one isn’t better off in general the more intricate their knowledge of science in all its iterations, but a philosopher per se, doing the work of philosophers doesn’t benefit in his task from maximizing his understanding of the minutia of each brach of science.
Yes, it is not necessary, but it is useful to know any and every branch of science. It depends on the individual case; for some it is useful for others it is more of a burden. So one has to decide.
At one time, a philosopher could know a great deal of science, think Kant or Descartes,
but today, a philosopher can only really know the cliff notes of science because Science
is too big and diverse to know. Heck, even specialist in one branch of physics, for example,
cannot keep up with the advances in physics that not their area of speciality.
Kropotkin
I think Leibniz was the philosopher who knew more about science than all other philosophers; one can even say that Leibniz was a great philosopher, a great scientist, and a great technician.
Despite the fact that scientists are believed to be exact and objective or objectivistic, they follow the primacy of the subjectivity, because scientists dominate the objects, their methods and models are part of them and not of the objects. This illustrates the connection of finding the object and disguising the subject. This kind of hubris is the price of the objectivity and is likewise bought by the quiescence and the standardization of what the subject is allowed to realize / recognize … So in the long run the team of researchers can merely become a homegenous army of subjects who are all shaped by the same methodical disguising. In the long run they have to become uniformed (same interests, same methods, same concepts, same words).
The opposed pole is the primacy of the objectivity, where the researcher comes closer to the object by loving it. (Yes - by loving it!) So the primacy of the objectivity has to do with aesthetics and erotism, whereas the primacy of the subjectivity has to do with agonal competition, with war and death. And, of course, the theories are opposed too: erotic theory versus agonal theory.
I think we have to consider both.
I voted yes, the more you know the more evaluating you can do, the more evidence you can reach and apply to your arguments or quest.
The quest for any philosopher should ultimately be the quest for knowing more, right?
Science helps with understanding, true science does. Whether it be botany or astronomy, it all benefits our thirst.
Be the balance, don’t be on anyones side but your own, or everyone’s. Then you may make friends all over, rather than only fitting into a select group
2op
scientists don’t know every area of science, that’s why you get experts. I think philosophers should know the science [or any knowledge or philosophy] which pertains to what they are saying philosophically.
Hey, three times “A…s”: Arminius, Amorphos, Artimas.
Stark! Crass! Isn’t it? 
Yes, but we should be careful, because all science becomes dependent on the moneygivers, thus on the corruption. Therefore I mentioned both the primacy of the subjectivity with its agonal competition and the primacy of the objectivity with its erotic aesthetics. The former is currently the hegemonial one, and it’s up to the latter to “survive”.
mine is best tho 
Yep, we need more true acience and true inspiration to lead to more real discovery of which progress our species. No money games, but resources that science needs.
It’s because A names are the best.
I voted no as I understood the question to mean “is knowing every branch of science an ‘ought’ for any given philosopher?” I don’t see that the majority of philosophy is improved by knowledge of bivalve reproduction or karst formation.
If you meant something along the lines of “should every branch of science have interested philosophers who know about it?”, then I think yes.
If you think that philosophers are less prone to guarding religious edifices of dogma, which you seem to accuse scientists of, I would disagree. There are precisely the same motivations and mechanisms at work in all fields.
Does anyone know a branch of science? OK, I am being fussy, but it seemed rather yes/no without gradations. It would be strange, I think, if a philosopher did not also find some interest in science, likely a couple of fields. Biology and physics come to mind as ones with easy connections to many philosophical issues. I am not sure it is a necessary condition for being a good philosopher, but I would guess that any philosopher who did not get curious about some of the sciences would like not have the necessary attributes to be a philosopher. Just as it would be strange if they never read any literature or had no interest in psychology.
I have to say I am more concerned about scientists having no knowledge of philosophy, which actually seems more likely given specialization and how philosophy is viewed.
And the first.